Growing Acts of Indiscipline in Ghanaian Schools: Perception of Students and Teachers at Abuakwa South Municipality

Indiscipline in schools has attracted the attention of many people and has eventually become the focus of discussions on many platforms. The purpose of the study was to find out the perceptions of teachers and students at the Abuakwa South Municipality of Ghana on student indiscipline behaviours. The study employed the descriptive survey and the approach was concurrent mixed method, involving bothquantitative and qualitative paradigms. Purposive and simple random sampling methods were used to obtaina sample size of five hundred and thirty (530) respondents. The main instruments used for the study were questionnaire and a semi-structured interview guide. Data was analysed using inferential statistics and content analysis. Findings from the study revealed that; there was no perceptual difference between students and teachers views on acts that constitute disciplinary behaviours. Additional, there were differences in thestudents and teachers perceptions of the influences of peer pressure on students’ disciplinary behaviours. Itwas recommended among others that peer counselling sessions should be organized periodically among students for them to be aware of acceptable behaviours in the school system and how they can maintain desirable behaviours

Promotion of rights and behavioural adequacy of students in school: Effects of a Transactional Analysis Programme

This study aimed to investigate the effects of teachers’ use of an Transactional Analysis Intervention Programme, on rights and behavioural adequacy of students in school. Specific formation was given to a group of teachers interested in the study, in which 8th grade students participated. The following evaluation instruments were used: the Children’s Rights Scale (Hart et al., 1996), and the School Disruption Professed by Students Scale(Veiga, 1996). These scales were applied before and after the intervention. The intervention lasted around 18 school weeks. The Transactional Analysis Intervention Programme was applied to the experimental group, and the control group continued to be the object of the type of teacher-student relationship practiced so far. The analysis of the results revealed statistically significant differences in the experimental group between the pretest and posttest situation, while this did not occur in the control group. The differences between the control group and the experimental group went from non-significant, in the pretest situation, to statistically significant and favorable for the experimental group, in the posttest situation. The study carried out stresses benefits for the students of the experimental group, who increase their rights and mprove their behavioural adequacy in school

Teachers’ representations of school indiscipline

In this article we analyze a set of teachers’ representations of school indiscipline and its implications for pedagogical practices, particularly related to the resolution of problems in the classroom. Initially we explore three teachers’ representations on the genesis of school indiscipline. The first representation attributes prominence to the student as the singular subject in the production of indiscipline and who will be the center of the pedagogical intervention. The second representation attributes the genesis of the indiscipline to the context of the relations among the subjects in the classroom. The third representation suggests that the indiscipline would be something socially constructed in the schools, where it is intrinsically related to its nature and social function, and is an intrinsic part of its institutional culture. This third representation is distant of the previous ones, and provides an understanding of the indiscipline as a cultural message. In the second part of this article we analyze a set of implications of the teachers’ representations in relation to their pedagogical practices. At the ending of the text, we present some notes that put in evidence some issues that seems to be at the center in the study of the representations regarding to school indiscipline, in relation to the roles teachers are supposed to taken in contexts of indiscipline

Financial indiscipline in Zambia's Third Republic: the role of parliamentary scrutiny

Contrary to the thesis that claims weak legislative power vis-agrave-vis the executive is essential if economic modernisation and development are to be driven forward in third world countries, Zambia's developmental interests would be served by making the powers of parliamentary oversight of the public finances more effective. The problematic of 'financial indiscipline' in the public sector is analysed in terms of a nest of principal-agent relationships, between legislature and executive, political executive and bureaucratic executive, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the spending arms of government. Evidence from the Public Accounts Committee is used to illustrate the case for more enforceable mechanisms whereby government can be made accountable for the public finances. At the same time it is argued that more wide-ranging political changes are necessary if there is to be a significant reduction in 'financial indiscipline'